Learning Stage

At the moment I'm not working on new portraits because I want to seriously get better at freehand drawing and drawing from imagination.

So I'm following an online course with great artists like Steve Huston, Danny Galieote and Glenn Vilppu. I already filled up a whole large sketchbook with exercises and I'm learning a lot.

My aim is to sketch portraits completely freehand and also to be able to draw portraits from imagination.

The main purpose is to study the structure of the head and understand its basic anatomy.

After working through the video material I want to draw five minute heads every day.

Although my exercises are not 100% perfect, it all depends on practice and I'm giving myself the time to learn this the way I'm content with. Since I'm very strict with myself this might take longer than I expected.

Jackson's Amateur Art Prize - voting now open

If you like my pastel portrait of black eyed man you can now vote for it as part of the Jacksons amateur art prize: 
http://a.pgtb.me/18hRbz/kTTdL?w=48436281&e=124979533
Thank you for your support.

My recent pastel portraits

Both done with soft pastels and pastel pencils (Caran d'Ache, Faber-Castell Pitt) on Mi-Teintes paper.

Reference for both: sktchy app

Longlisted for Jackson's Open Art Prize

I'm very pleased to announce that my pastel drawing of "Dark eyed man" has been longlisted for Jackson’s Open Art Prize.

This means it got selected from 3100 applications and is one of the 410 that made it!

https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2016/04/15/joap-longlist-announced/

See page 10!

Gray coloured portrait on black paper

This is my recent pastel portrait. I had so much with this! I never managed to draw on black paper before, but after the course I somehow have better skills in capturing the values. Took me 12h to finish. 

Gray and white pastel pencils on black Canson Mi-Teintes paper. Reference is from Sktchy.

If you're interested in such a portrait of yourself or relatives/friends etc., don't hesitate to contact me.

Pastel Portrait

Another sktchy inspired portrait. It only took me 8 hours. I'm finally getting faster.

Portrait Drawing Masterclass at London Atelier of Representational Art

I'm back from a wonderful week in London where I participated in a portrait drawing masterclass at the London Atelier of Representational Art. It was a great opportunity to learn the atelier method and the teacher was awesome. I learned a lot from the course. 

There were eight participants and two models, so four participants for each model. We used the sight-size approach. To draw accurate proportions we used a longer stick, went a few meters back and marked our spot so that we knew from where we have to look at the model. From this distance we could measure angles, etc. and memorise them so we can transfer it onto the paper. The easle was standing very close to the model, but we were only allowed to measure from the distance.

I'm now going to post my notes that I took during the course followed by progress pics.

1) Get the envelope done. Start with major lines and angles. Go back to get the head size right so that it fits nicely on the paper. Mark your spot.

2) Establish shadow shapes --> cast shadows (not the ones which are in the light), for example: neck, under the nose, under the eyes

3) Establish the darkest dark, include the background; Discussion with the teacher because for me the hair appears light at some stages but he says that it is very dark. It melts into the background. When looking at old masters paintings the hair always appears dark. Also treat the hair as one form.

4) Put in the lightest light, use layers: press harder for lightest values, press lighter for darker values;
For example: the forehead is a bit lighter than the tip of the nose.

Special remarks:
Treat the gray of the paper as a value. Leave a space between charcoal and the white pencil;
Never draw over the charcoal with white.
Never place highlights on the edge of a form.

Always distinguish between different shadow types: 
halftones (nearly everywhere in the face)
core shadow: e.g. the "line" between the face and the neck
cast shadow: e.g. under the face/neck

Proper shading: always sharpen the charcoal with sandpaper to a very fine point. Hold it at the end of the stick with the thumb on top for a very light pressure. 
Work on small areas with strokes going only in one direction; 

Sharpen the white pencil with a knife and sandpaper

Take care of:
soft edges
hard edges
lost edges

Squint until you see only shadow forms.

In an advanced state: ask yourself questions; e.g. is the form of the nose right?

What I should practise more: shadows and shading

Sktchy Portraits

Thanks to the Sktchy app, I recently got a few portraits done. It's an enormous source of inspiration and I use it for learning purposes. I did all the portraits freehand and I try to draw different perspectives. Also I want to be more creative in using different media.

Here are the first three portraits:

Something different - watercolour portrait

Something different from me. A watercolour portrait illustration. I have tried many portraits in watercoulor and this is the first that looks like a portrait. ;) It needs a lot more contrast but I was afraid to ruin it by painting more layers.
Next time I will be more content in layering more colours.

Update

Finally I'm back drawing. I have done a few pieces for my website which will launch in a few weeks. I will offer a variety of custom made portraits, only humans in the beginning.

Since my last job expired I had some time to figure out what I will do. Because of some health issues I intensively thought about my future and came to the conclusion that making art is my life goal and that I want to earn my living with art in the future. I got a side job to make basic living possible and to invest in my art education.

As a matter of fact I will start with a portrait drawing course in London in February. I will focus on classical drawing (and later painting) after the atelier methods.

I'm very excited to start this (new) life course and will also update this blog more regularly now.